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  “This is too important for either of us to let the past be a distraction.”

  Von settled back into her seat. She took Trinity’s hand in hers to keep up the pretense of being his wife. His fingers were stiff at first, but it wasn’t long before they closed around her hand.

  Von swallowed back the emotion that rose into her throat.

  Even after all this time, he tugged at her emotions. Just being near him…remembering. Despite the fact that she chastised him for remembering, she remembered.

  All too well.

  She wiggled her hand free of his.

  This wasn’t a good idea.

  She remembered everything.

  Von closed her eyes and cleared her head. She summoned the image of the person they were searching for and all other thought vanished.

  Tonight—right now—nothing else mattered except finding that little girl.

  DEBRA WEBB

  COLBY BRASS

  This book is dedicated to a man I did not have the privilege of knowing personally. But his reputation is one no one hereabouts is likely to forget. Jerry Crabtree, a man who did the thing he loved, police work, until the day he died. Thank you, Jerry, for a lifetime of commitment to serving and protecting your fellow man.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Debra Webb wrote her first story at age nine and her first romance at thirteen. It wasn’t until she spent three years working for the military behind the Iron Curtain and within the confining political walls of Berlin, Germany, that she realized her true calling. A five-year stint with NASA on the Space Shuttle Program reinforced her love of the endless possibilities within her grasp as a storyteller. A collision course between suspense and romance was set. Debra has been writing romantic suspense and action-packed romantic thrillers since. Visit her at www.DebraWebb.com or write to her at P.O. Box 4889, Huntsville, AL 35815.

  Books by Debra Webb

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  1023—COLBY REBUILT*

  1042—GUARDIAN ANGEL*

  1071—IDENTITY UNKNOWN*

  1092—MOTIVE: SECRET BABY

  1108—SECRETS IN FOUR CORNERS

  1145—SMALL-TOWN SECRETS††

  1151—THE BRIDE’S SECRETS††

  1157—HIS SECRET LIFE††

  1173—FIRST NIGHT*

  1188—COLBY LOCKDOWN**

  1194—COLBY JUSTICE**

  1216—COLBY CONTROL§

  1222—COLBY VELOCITY§

  1241—COLBY BRASS§§

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Evonne “Von” Cassidy—Von is a former Equalizer. She is focused and determined, but emotionally off-limits. She loved a man once, but refuses to admit that love still survives deep in her battered heart.

  Trinity Barrett—Trinity is a protector. He will do anything to protect those he cares about. Can he save the woman he still loves?

  Wanda Larkin—She has been seriously injured by her ex-husband, and her little girl, Lily, is missing.

  Dennis Lane—He’s a lowlife, but he’s the one link they have to what Wanda Larkin’s husband did with their daughter, Lily.

  Waylon Robinson—He promises to cooperate. He knows where the children are…where Von is. But can he be trusted?

  Special Agent George White—Simon’s FBI contact, who has been investigating the human trafficking network spanning from Chicago to Alabama.

  Victoria Colby-Camp—As head of the agency, Victoria sees only a bright future now that the Equalizers are fully merged with the Colby Agency.

  Jim Colby—Jim wants his mother to be happy, no matter what it takes.

  Simon Ruhl—A second-in-command at the Colby Agency. As a former special agent in the FBI, he has deep contacts with the Bureau.

  Ian Michaels—As Victoria’s other second-in-command, Ian is a stabilizing force within the staff.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter One

  Chicago, Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 2:05 p.m.

  Only three days until Christmas.

  Victoria Colby-Camp smiled as she watched the rush of last-minute shoppers along the sidewalks of Chicago’s Miracle Mile.

  Lunch with a longtime friend just two blocks from the office provided a nice stroll in the gently falling snow. Though many only endured Chicago’s harsh winters, Victoria loved this time of year. It was filled with countless reasons to be joyous and to celebrate. Just six years ago she had celebrated her first Christmas with her son after more than twenty years of not knowing whether he was dead or alive.

  Now she not only had her son, Jim, back, she also had gained a wonderful daughter, his wife Tasha, and two amazing grandchildren. A darling granddaughter, Jamie, and five-month-old Luke, Lucas James Colby. James would be so proud. The memory of her beloved late first husband brought a smile to Victoria’s lips. He would very much approve of how far she and Jim had come despite the many obstacles life had thrown in their paths.

  Victoria paused a moment to consider the building that had become home to the Colby Agency after the original building had been destroyed. Despite the state-of-the-art security, evil still found a way to touch those inside. Certainty chased away the niggling worry. No matter how hard their enemies fought to bring down the Colby Agency, somehow Victoria and her staff overcame the seemingly insurmountable to not only survive but also to thrive.

  For this she was immensely thankful.

  The chilly wind blew a wisp of hair against her cheek. Victoria swept it away, tucking the strands back into the French twist she’d so meticulously arranged that morning. Not so easy to do with gloved fingers. Sentimentality flowed inside her as she considered the numerous miracles she had observed firsthand over the past two-plus decades. The good somehow always outweighed the bad. She owed much to those who continued to persevere alongside her at the agency and fight the good fight.

  Some had moved on to begin new lives elsewhere, but most remained invaluable assets, both as friends and as business contacts. The Colby staff was the best of the best. Victoria appreciated each one for his or her unique qualities. This year she and Jim had decided upon distinctly generous bonuses for every member of the staff.

  Another smile spread across her lips. It was the least she could do given the enormous sacrifices each had made through their continued dedication and loyalty during the ups and downs and changes with the agency.

  A rush of pedestrians drew Victoria from her tender, affectionate musings.

  “Did you see that?” a woman asked another as the two, headed in Victoria’s direction, glanced back then hurried forward.

  Victoria didn’t hear the rest of the conversation since the women moved by so quickly. A group of pedestrians farther up the sidewalk drew her attention there.

  A woman stood alone.

  Victoria was first taken aback by her lack of suitable attire considering the freezing weather conditions. No coat…no hat or gloves. Dear God, no shoes. The woman stood, staring across the street, as if she expected someone or something to appear in her line of vision.

  Then she turned, facing Victoria’s direction, and trudged forward, her bare feet faltering clumsily through the ankle-deep snow.

  Vi
ctoria’s lips parted with a sharply indrawn breath.

  The front of the woman’s yellow blouse was stained a deep crimson. Droplets of that same startling color dripped from the fingertips of her right hand and onto the newly fallen snow, leaving a horrifying atlas of her jagged path.

  Victoria’s gloved hand slid into her coat pocket, wrapped around her cell phone even as a sort of shock held her unable to look away…unable to properly react. Who was this woman? What had happened to her?

  She stumbled closer. “Can you help me?” Her lips were cracked from exposure and her skin was deathly pale from the icy cold.

  Instinct kicking aside the shock, Victoria bolted forward just in time for the woman to collapse into her arms.

  “Help me,” she begged, her eyes wide with fear and glassy with whatever physical trauma she had suffered. Her left cheek was swollen. Blood had trickled from her nose and coagulated on her skin.

  Victoria hit speed dial for the office as she lowered the woman onto the cold blanket of snow. “Mildred,” she said before her personal assistant could launch into her practiced greeting, “I need paramedics. Now! I’m on the street in front of the office. I have a female, mid-to-late twenties, who is injured and bleeding.”

  Victoria surveyed the woman. The bleeding appeared to start at her left shoulder. “Make the call and get me some help out here!”

  Tossing the cell phone aside, Victoria opened the bloody yellow blouse to assess the injury. A penetrating wound on the left shoulder. Deep. Still oozing precious blood.

  “Please,” the woman urged, her voice scarcely a gasp. “Help me.”

  “I’ve called for help,” Victoria assured her as she shrugged off her coat and ripped the scarf from around her neck. With one hand she pressed the scarf over the wound to staunch the bleeding while spreading the coat over the woman’s body with the other.

  A sharply indrawn breath jerked Victoria’s attention upward. A man, cell phone in hand, stared at the startling sight.

  “Take off your coat,” Victoria ordered him, “wrap it around her feet and legs.”

  Still frozen, the man blinked.

  “Do it!” Victoria demanded.

  His movements stilted, the man shouldered out of his heavy winter coat and moved to do as he had been instructed. “What…what happened?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Victoria told him. “Help is on the way.” To the woman whose lips were still moving with inaudible words, Victoria said, “Can you tell me your name?”

  A weak gaze locked with Victoria’s. “Help me,” she murmured.

  “You have my word,” Victoria promised. “But I need your name.” Sirens wailed in the distance, providing some amount of relief. Help was on the way. Thank God.

  “My baby…” The rest of the woman’s words were thready, indistinct whispers. “He took my Lily.”

  Victoria leaned closer. “Please, tell me your name.” She wanted desperately to pursue the subject of the baby, Lily, but she needed the woman’s name first.

  “Wanda…” She moistened her cracked lips. “Larkin.”

  “What happened?” Victoria’s son crouched on the other side of Wanda.

  As if a shot of adrenaline had renewed her, Wanda Larkin frantically grabbed at Jim’s shirt with her right hand. “He took my little girl,” she cried. “You have to help me!”

  Victoria’s gaze collided with Jim’s for an instant before returning to the woman’s.

  “Who took your baby?” Jim asked, his voice gentle.

  “The paramedics as well as Chicago’s finest are here.”

  Victoria glanced up at Trinity Barrett, a member of her staff. Like Jim, he hadn’t taken the time to grab his coat before rushing out into the harsh weather. Victoria nodded, thankful the slippery streets hadn’t slowed down the arrival of emergency services.

  “Who took your baby?” Jim repeated a bit more firmly.

  “My ex-husband,” Wanda murmured. “He took my baby.” Tears leaked from her glazed eyes. “I tried to stop him. Outside the toy…store.” She gestured feebly in the direction from which she’d come.

  As Trinity filled in the paramedics, Jim prompted more answers from the victim. Where did she live? What was the name of the toy store where the attack and abduction had taken place?

  Victoria cleared her mind and took mental note of the information Wanda managed to provide before her ability to listen and respond faded further. Victoria grabbed her phone from the snow and put through another call to Mildred with instructions to send Von Cassidy to the major toy store only a few blocks away. It was the only one in the direction Wanda had indicated. Every moment that passed lessened the likelihood of finding witnesses to the incident. There was no time to wait for the police to react.

  Victoria and Jim moved aside as the paramedics took over care of the victim. While the police attempted to question Wanda, Jim gave Trinity a nod and they both slipped away. Victoria covered for them when the questioning turned to her and the man who’d reluctantly helped by giving up his coat.

  By the time the paramedics had taken Wanda away in the waiting ambulance and the police had gone with a warning that there would likely be additional questions, Victoria was freezing. “Thank you,” she said to the man whose name she couldn’t immediately call to mind.

  “I’m just sorry you had to ask for my help.” He shook his head and offered a bewildered shrug. “You see these things on the news…in the movies…” He shook his head again. “But you never expect to be the one…”

  “You reacted commendably,” Victoria assured him before he trudged away. She surveyed the sidewalks where those who’d stood by watching now went on about the business of hurrying to their destinations. When, she wondered, had helping one’s fellow-man become more a spectator’s sport than a call to action?

  She peered at the bloody snow where the victim had lain, then up at the sky. Victoria closed her eyes and let the falling snow sting her cold cheeks. Who was this woman? This Wanda Larkin?

  Was the incident related to a custody battle?

  Or was this something far more sinister?

  Either way…a child was missing.

  Whatever the motive behind the act—Victoria shifted her gaze to the building where her staff waited—the Colby Agency would find the missing child.

  And the man responsible for this unthinkable tragedy.

  Chapter Two

  Humboldt Park, 3:30 p.m. (2 hours missing)

  Trinity Barrett surveyed the block surrounding the apartment building where Wanda Larkin lived. Jim Colby reached for the unsecured door leading into the building. Trinity followed his boss inside the dingy stairwell. The wails of an infant somewhere above the first floor were underscored by at least one blaring television. A woman shouting at someone who had evidently made her unhappy drowned out the rest of the cacophony.

  Jim studied the row of mailboxes on the wall to the left of the entry door. “Third floor, 306.”

  Wanda Larkin had given them the street address, but the apartment number she’d murmured had been inaudible.

  Three flights of stairs later, Trinity approached Larkin’s apartment first. A metal number six identified the unit.

  Jim held up a hand for Trinity to wait as he moved to the right side of the door and knocked loudly.

  No response from the interior. No distinguishable sound.

  Prompted by Jim’s second round of knocking, somewhere on the fourth floor a dog barked.

  Jim nodded his approval and Trinity reached for the doorknob.

  Technically they were entering unlawfully, but the woman had given her address when Jim asked—which could be loosely construed as authorization to enter the premises. The cops hadn’t arrived just yet, which meant Trinity and Jim would need to proceed with caution. Tampering with evidence could impede the investigation as well as get them in serious hot water with the authorities.

  The latch released with nothing more than a single turn of the knob. Trinity pushed the door inwa
rd and drew back, staying to the left and clear of the opening.

  Seconds ticked by with no reaction.

  Jim moved into the doorway, then entered the apparently deserted apartment.

  Trinity followed.

  The place was neat and clean despite the worn-out furnishings.

  No sign of a struggle.

  The scent of recently baked cookies permeated the air. A small Christmas tree sat on the table in one corner, the decorations mostly homemade.

  Jim headed for the small hall that likely led to the bedrooms and bath. Trinity moved around the living room. A couple of framed photos sat on a table in front of the window overlooking the unkempt street. No curtains, just the open slats of yellowed blinds.

  Trinity picked up a photo of the woman, Wanda Larkin, and a small girl, six or seven years old, maybe. Cute kid with blond hair and brown eyes like her mother. His chest tightened at the idea that the child may have been harmed…or worse. He picked up another framed photo, this one probably taken at school. Her name, Lily, was stamped in gold lettering across the bottom of the photo. Using his cell phone, he snapped a close-up of the photo.

  “Two bedrooms, one bath,” Jim announced as he strode back into the room. “All are clean. If there’s been any trouble here, there’s no indication.”

  Trinity passed the framed photo of Lily to his boss. “I’ll check the kitchen.”

  The kitchen was actually a part of the living room, the two spaces divided only by a breakfast bar. A plate of cookies decorated for Christmas sat on the counter. The little girl’s artwork and more photos were displayed on the fridge.

  Lily. Trinity touched the name scrawled on a pink piece of construction paper, then traced the cut-and-pasted Christmas tree the child had drawn. An innocent child…that was now in danger.

  He shook off the troubling thoughts and focused on the details. Fridge and cabinets were painfully bare of provisions. Clearly the mother struggled financially, but the cleanliness of the apartment as well as the Christmas decorations and cookies indicated how hard she tried. A schedule printed on computer paper was taped to the side of the fridge. Trinity studied the document.